Honestly I've never tried vegetable oil but I religiously feed my horses a shot glass full of corn oil a day. It's an easy fat which really does bring out the shine and condition of a horse's coat and skin even in winter. Another more expensive alternative is rice bran oil.

I feed a dash of vegetable oil to my horses each day. They have lovely, shiny coats. But it's hard to say exactly what's doing it, as I also feed alfalfa and a bit of grain. I have a couple of neighbors who only feed alfalfa and their horses have lovely coats as well.

If you look at some of the oil based horse fat supplements, a lot of them start out with soy oil. Vegetable oil is soy oil.

Vegetable Oil is high in Omega 6, which can cause inflamation when used in large doses or over long periods of time. It's not a choice I would make just to get a shiny coat. Cocasoya oil would be a better choice if you must use oil. 1/2 cup of rice bran will accomplish the same thing and also help with weight gain for the hard keepers.

Vegetable oil is created through the same process of most hydrogenated oils and as such it's a damaged fat. It's EXTREMELY unhealthy when compared to oils such as a corn oil and canola oil which don't use that same dangerous heating process that causes the fats to be damaged and instead promotes Omega 3s which do the polar opposite as Omega 6.

Another idea is to forget the oil idea and feed a whole cup of Black Oil Sunflower Seeds (found in walmart for as little as $7 for 50 lbs) which are HIGH in omega 3s and antioxidants and perform the same basic function.

Personally my horses are on 1 shot glass full of corn oil and 1 cup of BOSS a day and they are FANTASTIC.

I used to feed my old horse canola oil with his feed,(because he colicked a lot, and it helped) and his coat got super shiny and soft... but it was also sshiny and soft before... this just made it more shiny and soft. Lol

I thought I should add that I just read all about this in a diet book and it made A LOT of sense and was backed up by a ton of references. There were also a ton of negatives regarding soy and how it's been linked to reproductive health issues in humans and animals as well as digestive cancers. Scared me off soy for life then again ever since I've "gone green" I haven't touched soy.

Register Now

In order to be able to post messages on the The Horse Forum forums, you must first register.

Already have a Horse Forum account?
Members are allowed only one account per person at the Horse Forum, so if you've made an account here in the past you'll need to continue using that account. Please do not create a new account or you may lose access to the Horse Forum. If you need help recovering your existing account, please Contact Us. We'll be glad to help!

New to the Horse Forum?Please choose a username you will be satisfied with using for the duration of your membership at the Horse Forum. We do not change members' usernames upon request because that would make it difficult for everyone to keep track of who is who on the forum. For that reason, please do not incorporate your horse's name into your username so that you are not stuck with a username related to a horse you may no longer have some day, or use any other username you may no longer identify with or care for in the future.

User Name:

Password

Please enter a password for your user account. Note that passwords are case-sensitive.

Password:

Confirm Password:

Email Address

Please enter a valid email address for yourself.

Email Address:

Log-in

User Name

Remember Me?

Password

Human Verification

In order to verify that you are a human and not a spam bot, please enter the answer into the following box below based on the instructions contained in the graphic.

Old Thread Warning

This thread is more than 90 days old. When a thread is this old, it is often better to start a new thread rather than post to it. However, If you feel you have something of value to add to this particular thread, you can do so by checking the box below before submitting your post.I am aware that this is an old thread and I want to revive it rather than starting a new thread.